Howard Patton

Howard Patton died Aug. 4, 2026. He was 91 years old.

Patton was born on Nov. 25, 1934, in Tuba City, on the Navajo Nation. He received his degree in mechanical engineering from San Francisco City College. He joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1959, working in the Nuclear Weapons Engineering Group. After 15 years, he joined a new and exciting technology: high-power lasers. Patton had three specialties, high-power laser engineering, contamination control and vacuum processing for micro-electronic devices. Highlights of his career include designing the Shiva and Nova lasers; Beamlet, the prototype for the National Ignition Facility; and working with the French government to build their Phebus laser outside Paris. His last project was the conceptual design of the NIF laser. After retirement, he continued to conduct design reviews for NIF and taught vacuum engineering and contamination control at various locations worldwide. He was a consultant to the Department of Energy in the fields of high-power lasers, vacuum engineering and contamination control until 2011.

He is survived by his daughter, Lindsay Patton, his two grandsons, Chris Sutton and Alex Sutton, and his two granddaughters, Jaime Creager and Brooke Creager.

A celebration of his life will be held at Richmond Yacht Club on Saturday, Sept. 19, 1–4 p.m. RSVP to Brooke Creager, creager3 [at] llnl.gov (creager3[at]llnl[dot]gov).